(Inspired by this article (“Presidential Approval Usually Falls Below 50%; Timing Varies - Obama at 51% approval in eighth month in office”) at Gallup.com)
It seems that in today’s socio-political times, a high-level politician simply can’t be embraced strongly by both sides of the ailse. But maybe in the past, this was possible. Has there ever been a President that had approval ratings over 50% with voters of both parties? Has any President ever enjoyed such high and biprtisan approval ratings over a sustained period of time (say, the better part of a 4-year term)?
Most recently, George W. Bush from approximately September 12, 2001, well into 2002, I believe. I was trying to tease out an actual party breakdown from some 2002 polling from, for example, Gallup, but I couldn’t find any, unfortunately. But he did have >50% approval from Democrats for a sustained period.
Over 50% of all Democrats approved of his performance for an extended period of time following 9/11/2001 - well into 2002. More notably, Democratic and Independent opinion of GWBush tended to move together, while Republican approval varied little, typically topping 85%.
Mainstream pundits will have you believe that the Democrats and Republicans are simple mirror images of one another. One should be wary of lazy, data-oblivious reporting.
Cite for Chart: “Polarized Politics and the 2004 Congressional and Presidential Elections”, Gary Jacobson
I see from Fig 12 of the same article that immediately following the re-election of Dwight Eisenhower, Democrats gave him an approval of 57%. Admittedly, the cross-party approval rating following re-elections has dropped steadily since then for both parties.
During the Great Depression, FDR was vilified by conservatives: they said he was a traitor to his class. One newspaper publisher handed out $100 bills to his workers when FDR died.
In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, George H.W. Bush’s approval ratings were through the roof, among Democrats AND Republicans. That was why the heavy hitters of the Democratic party (Cuomo, Gore, Bentsen, Nunn, Gephardt, et al) sat out the 1992 election, figuring they’d run against Dan Quayle in 1996. Only a few lightweights like the governor of Arkansas took a chance and sought the Democratic nomination.
Of course, that approval was fragile and short-lived, and Bush was thumped in 1992.
The lesson: most people aren’t ideologues, and most people WANT to rally around the President. So, for short periods, almost any President CAN win high approval ratings from people identifying with both parties.
But no President is likely to KEEP such high approval for long.
Just now I’m reading a book about Barry Goldwater & the conservative movement of the '60s: Before the Storm, by Rick Perlstein. In it I just found the astonishing claim that in early 1964 Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was 74 percent among Republicans. And of course presumably it was even higher among Democrats.
Not that astonishing; Johnson won the 1964 election by 22% of the vote, still riding the unquestioning support resulting from JFK’s assassination (much like 9/11). He only lacked signiificant support in the Deep South- the civil rights movement had not yet begun to polarize the country.
Maybe so, but in the same book I cite, the author three pages later says that 100 days plus two weeks into Johnson’s presidency (March '64 that would be) Johnson enjoyed an overall approval rating of 77 percent and a 75 percent approval rating in the South.